HBDA-T2: Body Skin, Door & Electric Lift

The body skeleton is reattached and floor set in place. Then its onto finishing the skin.

The upper portion gets skins cut to fit.

More cutting sheets of aluminum to fit then attaching using 3M’s VHB tape.

Between installing the skin I start working on the doors and latch.

The two doors allow access when the lid is up or down.

Inside view of latch and door jam.

Doors get skinned once latch, door jam and seals are in place.

With the main exterior panels completed I move on to the lift system. I design some brackets for the electric lift rams to attach to. They are cut out via a plasma cam then painted. Each corner of the trailer body gets a pair.

The flat spot on top clears the body of the rams. The inner curve is the cut exactly to fit around the lower body’s top edge. These are also on the upper lid/roof section.

Long sections of aluminum are bent to cap off the step on the lower body exterior.

The roof section is then set on top before the exterior skin is attached. This is to align the electric lifts and have access to adjust them.

Electric rams are attached and given a first test. It was late when we finally got to test them. Thankfully they worked the very first time exactly how the should of. We did have to adjust them a 1/4 inch lower. A testament to designing everything on a computer first.

Here’s a video of the first test. The battery we used was not fully charged, so took a bit to open and close.